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2004/04/22, 03:44 PM
From a medical site...
Milk, Cheese, Yogurt Are a Winning Weight-loss Combination
April 16, 2004 — Results of a new study suggest that dairy products can boost weight-loss efforts. In the study, adults on a reduced-calorie diet that included three-to-four servings of dairy foods lost more weight than those who cut calories but consumed little or no dairy foods.
While calcium may play a role in weight loss, this study showed that milk, yogurt and cheese had a greater effect on weight loss than getting calcium through a calcium supplement. "Dairy foods have a powerful, positive impact on weight loss," says lead researcher Michael Zemel, Ph.D., professor of nutrition, director of the Nutrition Institute, University of Tennessee. The study appears in the current issue of Obesity Research, the official journal of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity.
The 24-week long study enrolled 32 obese but otherwise healthy adults who were assigned to three different types of reduced-calorie diets. All diet plans reduced daily caloric intake by 500 calories. However, one diet was high in dairy products (at least three servings), one added a calcium supplement to a limited-dairy diet, and the third was a low-calcium/low-dairy diet.
At the end of the study, the volunteers on the high dairy diets lost an average of 24 pounds, or 11 percent of their total body weight. About 16 of those pounds were from fat, says Zemel. That compares to an average loss of 19 pounds/12 pounds of fat --or about 9 percent of total body weight--for those on the high calcium supplemented diet, and a loss of about 15 pounds/11 pounds of fat in the low calcium/low dairy group.
In both the high dairy and the high calcium supplement diets, daily calcium intake was about 1200-1300 mg. In the high dairy group, volunteers averaged 3 to 4 servings of milk, cheese or yogurt a day. They were permitted to choose low-fat dairy products, says Zemel, who added that volunteers chose from fat-free, lowfat and regular dairy foods and most opted for the fat-free and lowfat milk and yogurt and regular cheese. In the high calcium supplemented group the volunteers could have one serving of dairy a day and were given 800 mg of extra calcium. In the low calcium/low dairy group, calcium was restricted to just 400 to 500 mg a day and volunteers in this group were limited to a single serving of dairy daily along with a placebo supplement.
Zemel, who has been studying the dairy-diet link for years, said the new study underlines the significant difference between consuming dairy products as part of a balanced diet and simply adding extra calcium.
Dairy foods contain a mix of several essential nutrients, which includes both calcium and protein. It is this mix, he said, that appears to speed up metabolism and improve the body's ability to burn fat. "The practical significance of this research is simple - people lose more weight on diets that include three servings of dairy than on diets that don't," Zemel says.
He notes that dairy foods seem to particularly help reduce abdominal fat. This is important because medical researchers now consider that a waist measurement of more than 40 inches in men and more than 35 inches in women is a risk factor for heart disease and diabetes. "By reducing body fat in the abdominal region, people may also reduce their risk of developing several chronic diseases, including heart disease and hypertension," he says.
The study by Zemel follows similar findings reported earlier this year by researchers with the Framingham Heart Study. Lynn Moore, DSc, associate professor of medicine at Boston University, reported that pre-school children who consumed more than two servings of dairy foods daily were less likely to be overweight or obese as teens than children who consumed fewer dairy products.
The studies publicizing the weight-loss potential of dairy products come at time when obesity has become a major public health problem that affects 64% of Americans, adding about $117 billion annually to the nation's health care costs.
© 2004 National Dairy Council®
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